READ THE CITIZENS' VOICE

Digital Only Subscription
Read the digital e-Edition of The Citizens' Voice on your PC or mobile device, and have 24/7 access to breaking news, local sports, contests, and more at citizensvoice.com or on our mobile apps.

Digital Services
Have news alerts sent to your mobile device or email, read the e-Edition, sign up for daily newsletters, enter contests, take quizzes, download our mobile apps and see the latest e-circulars.

Contact Us
See department contacts, frequently asked questions, request customer service support, submit a photo or place an ad.

Article Tools

TIMES-SHAMROCK FILE The prison camp is part of the campus of Federal Correctional Institution at Schuylkill, but is isolated from the secured, medium-security main prison next door that houses about 1,375 inmates.

COURTESY OF FCI SCHUYLKILL Robert K. Mericle will serve his one-year sentence at this prison camp at the Federal Correctional Institution at Schuylkill.

Kids-for-cash developer Robert K. Mericle may be a multimillionaire, but his spending power in the prison commissary will be the same as everyone else: a maximum $160 every two weeks.

Mericle on Monday morning reported to a prison camp on the grounds of Federal Correctional Institution at Schuylkill, interrupting his life of privilege to begin a one-year jail stint that subjects him to a strict list of rules.

If Mericle intends to remain in control of his real estate empire, he’s allowed business associates as visitors but is forbidden from conducting business by telephone, according to a copy of the prison’s rules and regulations handbook.

“Telephones are not to be used to conduct a business,” the handbook says.

The prison handbook, issued to incoming prisoners, outlines how the next year of Mericle’s life will go while jailed for his role in the kids-for-cash judicial scandal.

Mericle, who is listed as Inmate No. 15135-067, must now get a prison job, usually a low-level manual labor task. He’ll be paid somewhere between 12 cents and 40 cents per hour depending on the job he’s assigned.

“Many jobs in our institutions involve general maintenance, sanitation, or food preparation duties,” Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke explained in an e-mail. “Assignment to a work detail is mandatory, subject to medical limitations.”

Mericle will wear a prison-issue green button up shirt with matching pants and tan or blue boots. He must wake early and have his bed made in “military style” by 7:30 a.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on weekends. He’ll be subjected to head count five times a day.

“There will be no movement or talking during count,” the prison’s handbook says.

Mericle will have access to the prison commissary, where he could purchase necessities like shampoo for $1.75 or luxuries like Timberland boots for $99.95. But he’ll be limited to a spending cap of $160 every two weeks.

A federal judge in April sentenced Mericle to one year in prison for concealing information from federal agents investigating two Luzerne County judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan, in the infamous kids-for-cash scandal. The 51-year-old’s federal crime stems from his paying $2.1 million to the judges who were accused of conspiring to shutter a county-run juvenile detention center and sending scores of juveniles to two facilities built by Mericle’s construction firm.

Mericle will live around, work with and serve time with about 300 other inmates at the minimum security camp, which consists of two dormitory-style housing units, an administration building, and athletic fields surrounded by woods, rather than fencing or barbed wire. The prison camp is part of the campus of Federal Correctional Institution at Schuylkill, but is isolated from the secured, medium-security main prison next door that houses about 1,375 inmates.

For recreation, there is an indoor hobby craft area, weight room, a music room and game room. Outside, the camp has a softball field, basketball courts, a bocci ball court, a weight lifting area, racquetball and volleyball courts and horseshoe pits.

The prison is 62 miles from Mericle’s home in Jackson Township, making visits from friends and relatives much more convenient than if he had been sent far away.

Inmates at the prison camp are only allowed visits on weekends and federal holidays. Mericle will be allowed an unlimited amount of immediate family members on his visitor list and up to 10 friends and associates. Normally friends and associates must have had a prior relationship with an inmate before his incarceration, but wardens can “waive the prior existing relationship requirement” for business associates, the prison handbooks says.

Mericle pleaded guilty on Sept. 2, 2009, to failing to disclose to federal investigators and a grand jury that he knew the judges were defrauding the United States by lying about the money on their taxes. However, his sentencing was postponed for years because he was supposed to be the key witness in the corruption trial of former state Sen. Raphael Musto, who was declared not competent to stand trial early this year and then died in April a day before Mericle’s sentencing.

At Mericle’s sentencing, U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik told Mericle he was guilty of “very serious criminal conduct” and needs to be punished accordingly.

“This false information to the government was nothing but corruption,” Kosik said.

Mericle will spend the entire year in federal custody because inmates sentenced to one year or less in the federal system are not eligible for good conduct time.

bkalinowski@citizensvoice.com 570-821-2055, @cvbobkal

We welcome user discussion on our site, under the following guidelines:

To comment you must first create a profile and sign-in with a verified DISQUS account or social network ID. Sign up here.

Comments in violation of the rules will be denied, and repeat violators will be banned. Please help police the community by flagging offensive comments for our moderators to review. By posting a comment, you agree to our full terms and conditions. Click here to read terms and conditions.